Spokesperson for the National Citizen Party (NCP) Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan stated that stated that BNP’s fight for democracy during the uprising was nothing more than a grab for power.
Accusing the party of being “murderers of democracy,” he added, “Their fight for democracy was actually just a fight for power. Whoever holds power has no need for democracy.”
“The party that was once seen as a nationalist force now appears to have a role that no longer matches its past,” Asif said at a discussion meeting at the NCP’s temporary central office in Banglamotor on Thursday afternoon, organised on the occasion of Independence and National Day.
Asif described the 2024 mass uprising as a continuation of the country’s independence struggle, stating that it paved the way for a “new Bangladesh, Bangladesh 2.0” by ending fascism. However, the NCP spokesperson expressed concern over what he described as efforts to undermine the July Charter, which he said was adopted unanimously after nearly a year of discussions and later endorsed through a referendum.
“Since the election, various efforts are ongoing to disregard the public mandate of the referendum and to repeal the referendum ordinance,” he alleged.
Asif also criticised the BNP for what he termed “abnormal” political alignments. “We are seeing that ‘the country is riding on an absurd camel’. Someone is in power, but who is actually running things from behind?” he said, adding that those who had previously made derogatory remarks about Tarique Rahman and Khaleda Zia are now being kept close to power.
He further accused the government of failing to address an engineered fuel crisis, claiming that hoarding by vendors linked to major companies was responsible. “Has any raid been conducted on the oil reserves of any major establishment yet? It hasn’t,” he said.
Turning his attention to local governance, Asif claimed that the BNP was undermining democracy by appointing administrators to local bodies. “If I sit in the mayor’s chair and then hold a mayoral election, then there is no need to hold any other elections,” he said.
